Wisconsin Buses Come Back Empty (from LA)
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Door County Katrina buses returning home empty
Last updated: 6:22 PM September 5, 2005
by Steve Kastner
STURGEON BAY, WI - Late Sunday night it was a touch and go-home-empty situation. Two of the four-bus Wisconsin caravan had already headed north out of New Orleans, carrying passengers, but not to Wisconsin. The other two Wisconsin buses had moved on to Houston, intending to complete their original mission by alleviating the burden placed on the state of Texas, bringing Katrina refugees back to Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.
"Our buses are in Houston, standing by, waiting to be filled - right next to CNN's media trucks at the Astrodome," says Christie Weber. "If they are forced to return home empty we will definitely provide that story to the media."
The problem was described as "Red Cross red tape." Officials in Houston refused to accept the Wisconsin buses without an official sanction and a declaration of emergency status from the state of Wisconsin. On Sunday afternoon news of an impending announcement from Governor Doyle's office was starting to break. One source said that Wisconsin's Governor would be making that announcement at 8 AM on Monday, then it was 9 AM. The Journal Sentinel said, "Gov. Jim Doyle's office announced Sunday night that a news conference would be held at 2 p.m. today at State Fair Park to announce the arrival of evacuees" …meanwhile empty buses waited in Houston and patience was running short.
Christie Weber, and a group of supporters were on the phone and on the Web late Sunday evening, searching for another group to work with in order to get those Wisconsin buses loaded. By 9 AM Monday morning it was reported that Wisconsin's Governor sent an e-mail to Houston Red Cross saying, "Fill those buses!"
At 9:30 AM Weber was informed that the buses had been accepted into the Red Cross program and would be returning to Sturgeon Bay with passengers.
By Noon the situation had again reversed... and the Wisconsin drivers decided to return without any passengers. Later, Red Cross officials in Hoston explained that they were developing a plan that would be announced on Monday at 5 PM.
Seven days after the Katrina disaster Wisconsin's Governor Doyle will announce the state's effort to aid Katrina victims joined by officials from the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, West Allis Mayor Jeannette Bell and South Milwaukee Mayor David Kieck.
People everywhere continue to wonder why all levels of government are so slow to respond to this natural disaster.
Hope Church minister, Vance Toivonen says his congregation remains committed to this hospitality and rescue effort and have decided to continue preparing for eventual NOLA evacuees. "Perhaps this first effort did not go as planned but there are more than a million people who will need to relocate, so we are keeping the door open."
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What a mess, huh? Sheesh! Sturgeon Bay is about 2 hours northeast of me.
"People everywhere continue to wonder why all levels of government are so slow to respond to this natural disaster." AMEN!!!
Yeah, I know!
How do they choose people to go where? I wonder if they have free choice or are forced to go someplace? I guess no one is forced to do anything. I guess people chose to go where they want. Big adjustment moving to a cold climate far from where you used to live.
Also New Orleans was a city so I don't know if they want to go to a rural area. Is the area they would be relocated to rural or city? Is there tons of jobs and good social services in Wisconsin? like a major city?
All those people can't stay and live in a dome that is for sure... Some people are already being moved to apartments
I am not sure if Texas can absorb all those poor people. I know the president will help his home state to the max. But alot of those people have no reason to go back to New Orleans. No jobs and no apartments.
I am sure alot of people are going to end up staying where they have been relocated. (like san diego) You can relocate me to san diego.. I love san diego. So I guess the displaced people want to be by family or something they know.
I think New Orleans had a big unemployment rate. I thought I heard... 15-25% or something? It says 50% here:
http://www.unogateway.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/09/06/431bd4c89253c
So anywhere these people end up them might end up doing better for themselves in terms of jobs and even education.
http://www.unogateway.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/09/06/431bd4c89253c
A voice from Louisiana: It could get worse, but it will get better
Michael Messerly
September 06, 2005
Even before the devastating events of the past week, for many in New Orleans there was simply little opportunity for improvement, little hope for better life and tragically, no escape.
To understand why so many thousands of people remained in New Orleans with a category 5 Hurricane Katrina bearing down on it, you must understand the unique dynamics that make up this city, this state.
When I accepted the position of online director with a Louisiana newspaper, I moved to this state sight unseen. If I had ranked states where I'd most likely want to live, Louisiana would have ranked in the bottom five alongside Mississippi and Alabama. In national rankings of categories such as health, wealth and education, these three states routinely fought among each other for 48th, 49th and 50th.
Louisiana is broken up into three distinct areas much like Nebraska. In La., it's Northern, Southern and New Orleans. The Big Easy is as unique to the rest of the state as it is to the world; there truly is no other place like it.
The phrase "it's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there," must have been created for New Orleans and it must have been by someone brave enough to venture out beyond the French Quarter and the Garden District.
New Orleans is as wrapped up by poverty as it is by water. The city's unemployment rate in July of 5.6 percent is a joke. Some estimate well more than 5o percent of the city is unemployed. Once federal unemployment benefits run out, you're no longer counted, to the U.S. Labor Department, you no longer exist. The city's school system is financially and intellectually bankrupt. The No Child Left Behind Act does not apply to New Orleans; these kids were left behind long before President Bush took office.
Among what these people know best are hurricanes. Reality is there was very little "shock and awe" in Louisiana over the flooding and devastation that hit New Orleans.
When Hurricane Ivan tore apart Pensacola, Fla., many of the natives predicted that if Ivan had hit New Orleans, there wouldn't be a New Orleans. To the people of Louisiana, Hurricane Katrina was a foregone conclusion.
Oh how prophetic those Cajuns can be.
Despite what the "experts" may claim, there was very little warning this was coming. On Friday, Katrina had just skipped over Florida, on Saturday night, it had somehow developed into a Category 4 hurricane that may hit anywhere along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama. Pull out the geography books from your bag and you'll learn the Gulf Coast goes for several hundred miles.
It wasn't until Sunday morning that we learned Katrina was showing more strength than any other recorded hurricane in history, it wasn't until Sunday that
New Orleans residents learned they had less than 24 hours to get the hell out of town.
Do you want to know the definition of the perfect storm? Try no warning, no money and no car. Even if there were a car, there were often too many people in a home to fit everyone. Someone had to stay behind. Who do you choose? How do you choose? You don't.
For all the hardship these people faced on a daily basis, there was simply no place else to go. You fight together as a family to move on with your lives from day to day, you'll now sit and pray together as a family that you live to see the next day. If you're going to die, let it be in your home with your family. In many ways, there's some comfort in that.
However, other people were taking the comfort in the knowledge that New Orleans has a secret weapon against hurricanes: The Mississippi River. The Mighty Miss has a natural tendency to turn hurricanes to the east at the last minute due to its cooler water temperatures spilling into the tropical Gulf.
To what appeared to be the city's salvation, that's exactly what it did with Katrina. New Orleans got nailed, sure, but it had survived as well as it could have expected. The city designed to protect itself from the Mississippi River with its many steep levees, had the river to thank.
But as Monday turned into Tuesday, tragedy avoided became tragedy unleashed.
The levees broke. This, not Katrina, was the worst possible scenario.
The images on television show a lot, the flooding, the destruction, and the daring rescues. But, television doesn't show everything; it doesn't show what it can't see. It's what we can't see that people in Louisiana fear the most.
For all the rooftops you see, there are hundreds of other homes completely covered in water. In those homes are hundreds and possibly thousands of people. Unlike other tragedies, there will be no miracle story when the water recedes some three to six months from now.
The people in these homes will be found dead. What you won't see on TV are the number bodies that are floating to the top of the water. You may see some, but in Louisiana, we're talking hundreds, possibly thousands.
An advantage one has in the media is you hear all the stories. We can't possibly tell them all, there are too many stories and they all sound the same anyway.
The one that sticks out for me is the tale of a man outside of New Orleans who sat on his roof for three days waiting for someone to come rescue him. In that time he estimates he saw between 50 to 100 human bodies float by his home.
As bad as it is, things still stand to get worse. The floodwaters are now topped with a thick layer of oil, gas and chemicals that is highly flammable. The refugee shelters set up for the flood victims are turning into human time bombs as the numbness and sadness wears off and the anger begins to build. Fights are breaking out in the shelters and the police are now having to save the flood victims again, this time from each other.
Some businesses have advised their employees to drive only in daylight hours ... and armed. Throughout the state, rumors of a lack of gas and a large state banking firm running out of money are causing people to needlessly panic.
The famous Southern hospitality will be tested like never before. Cities throughout Louisiana have been wonderful in taking in the refugees, but there's an emerging uneasiness as "their" problems are now becoming "our" problems.
The people who did have the resources to leave New Orleans have had those resources tapped out. They've lost their homes, jobs, possessions, identities, their standing in the community, their neighbors and friends. It's all gone. They have to start over. They never wanted to start over, they never had a reason to, they never prepared to, why should they?
Survival has become a guessing game. How long before I go home ... three months, six months, a year, ever? Is my home still standing, Will my company be able to find me another job?
What also scares people in Louisiana is its future. This is due in large part to its history. Louisiana will be paying for this tragedy for the next 50 years or more. It will not be easy to squeeze the poor for any more than they've already given.
A high tax state is about to get even higher. Try luring businesses to invest into your state when you'll tax them like crazy when they arrive and you haven't got a large enough base of educated citizens for those who do make the plunge. This is why not one Fortune 500 company is headquartered in Louisiana. Louisiana has very few white-collar jobs and many of its blue-collar jobs just washed out into the Gulf.
As doom and gloom as it all appears, in spite of what its history may suggest for the future, I can't help but believe that Louisiana is going to recover like never before. This country realized its Manifest Destiny due to the Louisiana Purchase and this state will stake claim as one of our country's greatest comeback stories. Why? Because the untold story of Louisiana is that its comeback was already starting to take place before Katrina.
It all starts with education; Louisiana test scores were on the way up to national averages. Louisiana has a program called TOPS that provides a tuition-free education to its best students in a state university or college. Cities such as Lafayette and Shreveport were growing in the fields of medicine, science and technology. Tourism was as strong as ever and Hollywood was beginning to fall in love with shooting movies in the state.
Louisiana reminds me in some subtle ways of Nebraska, but also in a not-so-subtle way: King Football. It may sound corny, but the recovery of Louisiana begins Saturday when LSU blows Arizona State right out of the Bayou State. This is what the state needs, that single rally point, that moment in time that pulls the state together to stand, cheer and feel good about itself.
As stated earlier, Louisiana has ranked near the bottom for generations and last week it hit rock bottom. However, these people will pull together, set their minds straight and rebuild. I may not live to see it complete, but in the end, thousands of tourists, Mardi Gras revelers and convention-goers will return to New Orleans, and someday when they do they'll say "nice place to visit, I sure wouldn't mind living there."
[Michael Messerly was the former copy editor, sports editor and news editor at the Gateway until 1997. He is now the online editor for the Louisiana Shreeveport Times. He wrote this specifically for Gateway.]
The problem was described as "Red Cross red tape."
Red cross is not Govt, it is a private organization.
And a LOT of people are choosing not to go, just like they chose NOT to evacuate. People are drawn to their homes, no matter how logical it seems. But even on this board there would be people who would refuse to leave if some gvt official or red cross said, there is an issue that is arrising you need to go now, leave your stuff, leave your pets, we are just taking people and you have to go now, families aren't considered. LA is a state with huge family ties, many families have granparents, aunts, uncles that live nearby, so if they take one street on one bus to houston and they next street to san antonio, you end up 5 hours from family. People are already try to match back up with their families.
I would wonder if the people in Wisconsin cleared it with the people on site before sending the buses. I haven't read this article but I've heard some comments on NPR. I know Philadelphia is offering to take up to 5,000, and has already set up sites with "family type" accomodations, but we are waiting for the sending city to send the refugees by whatever means they choose.
I don't know if they had or not. They tried to help. Maybe they didn't do it right. I have no clue.
Some evacuees are coming to WI today, though.
WI News
There are truckers from Michigan who drove ice down there. They have been there for four days, and they still haven't unloaded.
http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3813656&nav=0RcdeChp
There is such a horrendous lack of coordination and communication on every level and every aspect. I heard a bit on KYW yesterday, the refugees we were expecting in Philadelphia didn't come yesterday because the plane was sent to the wrong city - one with the same name in Virginia, rather than wherever the refugees are.
I sure hope heads roll - on all levels except the bottom level (i.e., police, first responders, etc.) on this one when the committees and investigations start.
I agree with you Ginny that heads need to roll. But from all I am hearing, the local government (mayor)and police are the first responders and it is up to them until they call the state (govoner)(I am not sure, but does the national guard fall under state too??) and say they need help. It is then up to the state to call in the feds to say they need help. Until it comes out at what point calls for help were made, it is anyones guess as to whos shoulders this will fall. I will say that everyone seems to be doing a mighty good job of putting it on someone else though.
LOL Vicki!
WTH, I swear! I am astounded. When does buracratic bs override help?
People are dying to help, they are doing incredable astounding things to help, they are willing to do wonderful things for people that they dont know. So what happens, oh you dont have the P32-74R form filled out in triplicate, having one sent to Mars for processing before anybody can get anything. Oh we just couldnt allow people who want to leave to actually go, we have to have all this paper crap filled out, we dont care that you guys are willing to take these people in with open arms, what about all these little pieces of paper? Total anarchy will break out if the little pieces of paper are not satisfied! Heads will roll if the little pieces of paper are not filed properly!
How long do you think people are going to ask to help if every attempt to help is met with a whole bunch of fubar nonscence. And they just say, "please send money, we dont want clothing or supplies" UGH, so you guys can continue to do crud like this?
Blame? I think there is plenty to share. And alot of it is just honoring the letter of the law instead of the purpose of it. And not doing what the paper tells you but doing what is RIGHT.
So do YOU feel safe? I sure as heck dont. Gillions of our taxes have gone into making sure we are "safe". Well if this had been a nuclear bomb instead of an act of God we all would be pretty sc****d.
Yes exactly!!! Sc****d is an under statement.
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